Leaving Time

A Novel

"Alice Metcalf was a devoted mother, loving wife, and accomplished scientist who studied grief among elephants. Yet it's been a decade since she disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind her small daughter, husband, and the animals to which she devoted her life. All signs point to abandonment . . . or worse. Still Jenna--now thirteen years old and truly orphaned by a father maddened by grief--steadfastly refuses to believe in her mother's desertion. So she decides to approach the two people who might still be able to help her find Alice: a disgraced psychic named Serenity Jones, and Virgil Stanhope, the cynical detective who first investigated her mother's disappearance and the death of one of her mother's co-workers. Together these three lonely souls will discover truths destined to forever change their lives. Deeply moving and suspenseful, Leaving Time is a radiant exploration of the enduring love between mothers and daughters"-- Provided by publisher.

Comment

Ugh... this was the 2nd JP book I slogged through. I gamely tried JP again after my 1st try (Small Great Things), but there was zero improvement!
By the time I'd read Leaving Time, her formula became clear to me... within 9 months(!): pick an idea, skim research it, develop a plot, people it with unbelievable & extreme characters, do not develop those characters, have characters ask endless questions about minutae, constantly lecture the reader, end every chapter with a one line zinger, publish the book, etc, etc.
Just goes to demonstrate yet again... just because a book and/or author is a bestseller/trendy/popular doesn't mean they're/it's worth reading. As another reviewer astutely said... she'll never win any sort of literary prize for her output.

An enthralling summer read – it's a page turner, I love elephants, and am intrigued with the paranormal world. Although Picoult is sometimes faulted for being formulaic in her writing, it’s a successful formula that captivates the reader, challenges truth through differing character perspectives, and provokes thought with her themes. Many parallels of the grieving process in elephants juxtaposed to Alice & Jenna. Not to mention a gob-smacking ending!

5 out of 5 for sure! I have read almost all of Jodi Picoult's books. She is my favourite writer. With this said, I have to say that this is by far my favourite book written by her. I loved learning all of the information about elephants and the book kept me guessing as to what the ending would be like. I enjoyed each of the characters and how each was different, but really contributed to the storyline. I would definitely recommend this book.

This book was beautifully written. The daughter's quest to find her mother and the mystery behind it had me intrigued the entire way through the book. I had a hard time putting it down. The mother's research about elephants was equally as fascinating. I totally disagree with one reader's comments that the author did " tremendous damage to the issue of elephant welfare" because of the author's "woo woo" psychic storyline. Any awareness for animal rights is good awareness. In fact, thanks to this book, I will be adding the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee to my list of animal welfare charities that I donate to.

Apart from the characters all being caricatures and very poorly developed as people, the story could have been reasonably interesting had the author not so obviously used it as a way to advocate for her belief in psychic phenomen and elephant welfare. At one point she goes on and on about Einstein believing in communication with the dead as proof that this really happens. The story becomes ridiculous because of this willingness to accept woo woo concepts as reality and to develop that concept to an absolutely ridiculous level.

More importantly to me, the author does tremendous damage to the issue of elephant welfare because she is mixing it with woo woo psychic foolishness and the reader can't trust that anything she author says about elephants is anywhere close to the truth. It's unfortunate that Ms Picoult doesn't understand that "you can't poop in the water and not have it contaminate the whole pool".

Moving. My first Picoult book. She is a master of the plot. Kudos for giving voice to the atrocities suffered by elephants at the hands of humans, although this does not permeate the book. As a small contributor to The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee, I appreciate the book's elucidation of many aspects of elephants, both in sanctuaries and in the wild. I had to put the book down and take a breather several times, as both the fiction and the fact are very emotional experiences. Completely unexpected outcome. I just finished it last night and I think I'll be mourning for Gideon for quite a while. Disclaimer: I've been studying "the other side" since 1978 and have had some personal experiences in this area, so this isn't as "fictional" to me as it may be to others.

“When someone leaves you once, you expect it to happen again. Eventually you stop getting close enough to people to let them become important to you, because then you don't notice when they drop out of your world.”

“I think grief is like a really ugly couch. It never goes away. You can decorate around it; you can slap a doily on top of it; you can push it to the corner of the room—but eventually, you learn to live with it.”